Ramblings of a foxdragon

Sweet Emotion

Time for another of those shouts out into the vast void of the Interwebs!

Last night, after I said goodnight to my love and was getting ready for bed, I was thinking back on the day and realized my mood hadn’t changed much for most of the day(apart from when I surprised her with some art that I’ll get into later). It was an odd feeling, but after a few minutes though I was able to put a name to it: I was content.

Strange that something so simple is so elusive in the modern world, so uncommon that it’s not recognized immediately anymore. Yet there it is, after spending a day mostly split between Diablo 3 and time in SL with my mate.

I guess our lives are so sped up and micromanaged by various companies wanting siphons in our wallets, not to mention work pressures, that it’s hard to find those quiet times anymore. “Feeling anything other than nondescript happy? There’s a drug for that!” “A normal person is happy. You ARE normal, aren’t you?” “Look at these awesome stars you’ll never be as good at unless you buy our stuff!”

These days we’re constantly pushed and pulled in so many different directions and ways that equilibrium is hard to find. It’s a bit like Bilbo described in the LotR stuff; “A bit like too little butter spread over too much bread” or jam or whatever it was. Everything is “GOGOGOGO NOWNOWNOW” from the intense lows of a manager or customer leaning into your face tearing you a new one because this color isn’t exactly like that color, never mind it’s the same color, to the intense highs of getting that brand new sportscar to show off to your coworkers like you’re getting paid twice what you are.

Things are going great or things are going shitty, and you’re expected to react appropriately and that there’s something wrong with you otherwise.

There’s also the perception among current US culture that if you’re not on top of the heap, you should be reaching for more. “Everything for me and mine; hell take the hindmost” is a common sentiment if you break things down. You don’t even need to deny it; just look at the laws that get passed or repealed, and what all the lobbying groups push for. If you’re not making progress or sitting at the top, you don’t deserve to be happy, and god forbid that you actually backslide! Everyone knows that never happens to anyone who doesn’t deserve it, right? Therefore, if you backslide you must be a horrible horrible person and you deserve all the bad things the rich men do to you.

I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s “unfashionable” to be content. Honestly, there’s still things I want and want to change, but for that day there was just me, my mate, my friends, and a game I find fun, and that was enough for that day. It was a simple happy, not the extreme high that most seem to think of as happy these days. In fact, thinking about it, I’m sure there’s some that would qualify anything outside that extreme high as being unhappy, and treat it with “medication”(whether legal or not).

It’s actually kind of sad that this is a thing. I guess that’s why some folks reject the modern world and pine for older days, when things were simpler, less hectic, and less inclined to extremes. There’s still plenty of room though to step back and enjoy a simple day, leaving the worries of the world behind and just enjoy the moment, even when you work in IT!

Now as to the other moment I mentioned earlier, I had been wanting to get my girl a picture of her dragoness playing the keytar(as she does in a band in SL) for a couple months now. There was a specific artist who does really inexpensive stream sketch commissions, but they’d been working on full commissions for a while and hadn’t done a stream since March! Friday, I found they were opening on Saturday afternoon. I probably had the dopiest grin on my face on and off that afternoon as I pondered getting to surprise her with that, since she never got any art before now.

When the time got close, I was a bit nervous, since we were also running a race event on SL, and I wanted her in the stream while it was being drawn. I paused for a few minutes to let some other people get their entries in before mine so they wouldn’t overlap, which worked like a charm. Then however, there was some confusion about the race that looked like it would delay things, but by the time my queue slot came around the after-race party was well underway.

When I was getting her into the stream, I didn’t tell her what it was for other than she would really want to see this, and the whole time I was feeling the urge to giggle or snicker in anticipation of her reaction, which was fairly close to what I had figured. The picture came out pretty good, if a little bit different from what I had expected, but she loved it, which gave me that bubbly happy feeling from seeing her happy about it.

Since I had gotten to surprise her with that one, I went ahead and told her about the other commission I had gotten, that was of both of us. That one is more of a slow burn as that commission is going to be worked on over July, and I hope we both like that one just as much as this one – it’s just harder when you’re working without a solid reference, and her SL av is still a WIP.

Which I suppose is a good time to go back over my art queue.

Badge from Acidapluvia – She’s been busy with life, but she finally got around to updating her Trello queue listing last week and it’s showing as in-progress now, so yay! Not sure if it’s going to be just the image or it’ll be physical, so will find that out when she gets it done.

Adult pic from Tanraak – Got a sketch, he tried to work on it for a bit, wasn’t satisfied with it and redrew it, although honestly I liked the first sketch also. After the last review of the new sketch I haven’t heard back in a month, but he’s had some motivation problems recently so been cutting him some slack before I poke him to find out about any form of progress.

The aforementioned couple pic from CurioDraco – Got confirmation and sent payment over the weekend, and it’s part of a batch that will be worked on over the month of July. I’d been wanting some art from her and I’d been wanting to get a pic of me and Kait so this works out perfectly.

On a side note, advice for anyone who is looking for good dragon artists, whether adult or otherwise: Look through the gallery and favorites of some of the more commonly drawn dragons, like Byzil and her friends – that’s how I found most of the dragon artists I’m watching.